has started, then. David Beckham, who ended the 2006 World Cup in tears because he thought it would be his last, is now saying England fear no one. Fabio Capello, who ended the last World Cup delighted with Italy's win but packing his bags for Spain with Juventus embroiled in the country's match-fixing scandal, has described what lies ahead in South Africa as the hardest test of his life.

You have to aim for something upbeat and can-do when speaking into a microphone at an event as global as a World Cup draw, and while Beckham and Capello both give good soundbites, it should be noted that the erstwhile captain's boast will come winging its way back to him should England struggle against either Algeria or Slovenia, whereas the manager has wisely remained positive without actually promising anything.

Winning a World Cup ought to be the hardest thing to achieve in football, and if Capello can manage it with his limited forward options, two knackered centre-halves and a succession of comedy goalkeepers he really will have something to tell his grandchildren. English resources have been decidedly thin in recent tournaments, with single injuries to key players having a disproportionate effect in each of the last three, and impressive as qualifying form was under Capello there is no reason to suppose England can prevail against nations with greater depth, such as Brazil or Italy, even if everyone stays fit.

Yet now that the standard of football is generally acknowledged to be higher in the Champions League than the World Cup – because the best players in the world can be found on the European stage every year while Fifa's four-yearly festival inevitably features mismatches, no-shows and end-of-season weariness – is getting your hands on the World Cup still the ultimate challenge?

Reaching, say, the last four of the Champions League is certainly harder than the equivalent achievement in the World Cup. Turkey made the last four in 2002 without striking anyone as a wonderful side. Germany and Portugal managed it last time and, while it ill behoves anyone from England to question the capability of either of those teams, they both required penalty shoot-outs to do it and, wrongly as it turned out, had both been regarded as beatable by their quarter-final opponents (Argentina and England). In the Champions League you not only have to play more matches – Barcelona played 13 games to win last year's competition, though had Arsenal or Liverpool reached the final they would have played more through entering at an earlier qualifying stage – you have to do it concurrently with your domestic league programme and the amount of travelling required is significantly greater. That makes life difficult for players in terms of rest and recovery from injury, though at least rotation is possible with large squad sizes.

The manager has no such protection. He must change the team but still get the results, or face the consequences. Woe betide Rafa Benítez, for instance, if he rests Fernando Torres or Steven Gerrard for a league game and ends up with only a draw. Ditto Sir Alex Ferguson, miscalculating somewhat at Wembley last season and going out of the FA Cup at the semi-final stage to a team that had managed to beat Manchester United only once since the turn of the century.

If we are talking about degree of managerial difficulty, running a joint Champions/domestic league campaign must be more demanding than playing a maximum of seven games in a World Cup situation. Even though he lost in Rome and abandoned the FA Cup, Ferguson's achievement in guiding his team to a second successive Champions League final while simultaneously picking up another two Premier League trophies was considerable. And Pep Guardiola's feat, not only becoming the youngest ever Champions League‑winning coach but guiding Barcelona to a treble in his first season as a manager, was simply staggering.

Should England win a World Cup with David James in goal and Emile Heskey up front it will be staggering in a different way, and Capello will rightly be fêted or sainted or whatever else can be done to someone who cannot be knighted, yet in South Africa he will find himself with the best players available, without the need for transfer fees or negotiations with agents. The hotel will be wonderful, the training facilities as good as they possibly can be, preparations will be meticulous, distractions minimal and the games will come comfortably slowly. You might still have to play Brazil, so no one can say World Cups are easy, but you can see why managers get a buzz from tournament situations, especially after all the ennui that comes with the long waits between games in the qualifying cycle. They are a test of pure ability, a decision-making challenge with most aspects of the real world removed.

Which is, of course, why winning a World Cup can never really be regarded as the hardest task a manager might face. Ask Paul Hart, who until a couple of weeks ago had the world's most thankless task. Or Avram Grant, who cannot buy new players and struggles to pay the ones he has, yet is somehow supposed to drag Portsmouth out of danger. Hard is doing what David Moyes does, competing against Liverpool with no money. Or what Chris Sutton, with no managerial experience, has signed up for at 90th-placed Lincoln City. For most managers life is hard, then you get sacked. Capello faces an impossible task, that's all. It is still quite a pleasant one.